Fitness is for Rent
It was about ten years ago that a co-worker coerced me into cycling. I had always enjoyed mountain biking, but never tried riding much on the road. I was shocked by two things: how much fun it was, and how blazing fast some guys were. One guy in particular was impossible to keep up with. He had been an all-American swimmer in college and was super fast on the bike. He also worked really hard at it. He would post his rides on social media all the time, showing how much effort he put forth to build his fitness. Until he didn’t. One day he completely stopped posting his rides. I assumed he was still riding, just not posting about it, but every once in a while I’d check in on him and still find nothing, until a few months ago. He started riding again, but now he was a lot slower, more like my speed. In one of his recent posts he wrote the phrase “Fitness is for rent,” meaning, you can’t ‘buy’ fitness once and keep it forever, no, you have to pay rent daily to keep and build your fitness.
Vision is like that too. If we’re not actively working to keep a fresh vision in front of us, then it fades over time. That’s why once a year or so we take time to cast a fresh vision as a church. This Friday evening is our Vision Banquet where we introduce a new theme for the church for the coming year. We will talk about where we believe God is taking us as a church in 2025. Our core direction as a church doesn’t change, like we talked about last week in 1 Peter 1:25, “The Word of the Lord remains forever.” It remains the same because it is our dependence on God’s Word and our desire to honor and worship Christ in all that we do. But how it is carried out has a different emphasis year by year and season by season.
I’m so grateful Valley View is full of people who are hungry for God’s Word, who are dependent on the Holy Spirit, and who are seeking God’s active direction in their lives day by day. We can’t rest on last year’s fitness, nor last year’s vision. Let’s gather together and seek God’s daily direction and vision in our lives for the coming year!
Photo by PhotoMIX Company